The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1887-09-08
WOMAN MAYOR.
How Mrs. Salter Guides the Des-
TIMES of a Little Kansas
nnUn
From the New York World.

lluleS Oh u LllllS hdAodo
Town.
From the New York World.
Argonia, quiet little town in Sumner
county, Kan, where one would never look
for sensation, il, nevertheless, just at
present, as noted in its way as Kansas
City or Chicago, and all because of
woman mayor, the only one OF the kind
known in the history even of the progress
sIve state of Kansas, which, just at present,
seems DESTROYS of trying all possible ex-
periments.
Mrs. Mayor SusanDah MADEIRA Salter, or
! Mayor Mrs.Susannah MADEIRA Salter,as one
may choose to call her,is only twenty-seven
years of age, of about the average femin-
inc height, and weighs 12S pounds, accord
| ing TO her own confession. She is, how
ever, typical frontiersman's wife, pos
sessed of Drawn AMI sinew, rather than
| pleasing plumpness and roundness of
form. She talks in easy, confident style,
in fairly good English, in which the west
ern mixture of lenses somtimes becomes
prominent. She is always properly dig
nitied, and in all the experience of Ar
! goria has never been known to crack a
joke in the council chamber. Her eyes
are dark gray, while her hair is inclined to
golden, and is worn parted and crimped.
She makes all her own clothes, as we'll as
those of her four children, the second of
whom was the first child born in tine town.
The youngest is little girl q year old.
Mrs. Salter was born of Quaker parents
on farm ear Lamira, Belmont county,
o., i'll 1862, but when II years of age went
to Kansas with her parents, and there was
given limited schooling at the Kansas
State Industrial college, of which Con-
gresham j. A. Anderson was then presi-
dent. There she met Louis A. Salter, son
of an ex-lieutenant-governor of the state,
who was working his way through college
by running errands and doing other work.
The future mayoress studied the art of
dresamakiUg, and now boasts that she
has paid for the making of but one gown
in her life.
In the fall of 1880 the present political
leader of Argonia's destinies married Mr..
Sater, and in 1888 she, her husband and
parents, moved to the town over whose
government she nov presides. The first
mayor was Mrs. Salter's father. The first
winter Mr.. and Mrs. Salter lived in a de
serted corn house, the windows of which
were the chute holes, while the cooking
was done on a gasoline stove, a portable
heater furnishing warmth. Mr.. Salter
engaged in business and the couple began
to prosper. They organized Baptist
church, the first in the place, and the wife
took a leading part in the formation of a
Woman's Christian Temperance union
lodge, the meetings of which she always
insisted on having conducted according
to the approved parliamentary rules of
debating societies, with which she had
been made more or less familiar at the liz
dustrial school.
Mrs. SslSer was nominated for mayor
by the Woman's Christian Temperance
union last spring on strictly prohibition
platform. The nominating convention
was held in the Baptist church the Sunday
evening before the election, and was
opened by the singing of America" fol-
lowed by the reading of psalm and by
prayer. On election day the anti-prohi-
bitionists ordered their tickets printed
with Mrs. Salter's name as the candidate
for mayor as burlesque. The temper
ance workers thereupon waited on Mrs.
Salter, finding her at the wash-tub. She
was exceedingly angry when informed of
the insult, but after council of war con-
scented to take the Office if elected. Her
| friends then went to work with a will, and
when the polls closed she had received
three-fourths Of the votes cast. She, how
ever, stoutly disclaims any prediction
towards woman's rights, and in al family
matters she defers to her husband we'll
TODD attorney and real estate agent
Mrs. Salter declares that one term is all
she wants and that she Is not ambitious
for any further political preferment. She
says, whenever questioned on the subject,
that she will be glad when her term is
ended, as she wants nothing better than
private life. She receives the princely
salary of 81 year for guiding the affairs
of the town. The people, as rule, are
not overmuch pleased with her admins
tration, and it is safe to say that next
spring she will not be called upon to take
second term. In the council chamber it
is said that she presides with becoming
severity, checking all inclinations to levity
with magisterial frowns.